ASLA promotes everyday leadership
LEADERSHIP DOES not need to be done through grand deeds. Anyone can be a leader through simple, everyday tasks.
With this message, the Ateneo Student Leaders Assembly (ASLA) dared students to make a difference with their project called “Dare it Forward.”
From January 18 to February 22, students went to ASLA’s booths at the Kostka extension and the Doghouse to sponsor or do a dare.
The "Dare it Forward" project is ASLA’s way of initiating and promoting leadership to the Ateneo community through simple everyday deeds.
Now on its sixth year, ASLA has been focusing on developing student leaders through its annual congress.
ASLA Project Director Omi Castañar (IV AB DS) said that the project makes ASLA go beyond its annual congress by actively encouraging and promoting leadership to all Ateneans.
Redefining leadership“Our mission is to create and nurture a culture of leadership in our society, through our ASLA leaders,” said ASLA Moderator Joseph Quesada (AB MEco ‘02).
“Leadership begins with you, and through these deeds, you can be a leader and challenge others to become one too,” said the project's Multiply site.
"Dare it Forward" Project Head Margarita Patricia Valdes (III AB Comm) said, “Though being a leader is not easy, it can be exercised by anyone through simple acts.”
With the program, ASLA is determined to break the stereotypes of leadership as heroic and requiring big acts.
Be the differenceDare it Forward’s tagline is “Be the DIF. Make a DIF.”
“By sponsoring a dare, one provides others with the opportunity to make a difference, and by doing a dare, one becomes the difference,” Castañar said.
He added that through doing these dares, no matter how menial, students execute everyday leadership and become good models for other students.
Positive reactionsStudents and faculty members liked ASLA’s idea of everyday leadership, Valdes said. She also mentioned that students liked their promotional materials, especially the one showing Castañar hugging Theology Chair Fr. Adolfo Dacanay, SJ.
“Students generally like the idea and think [that 'Dare it Forward'] is cool,” Valdes said.
For Valdes, the project made students realize that through simple things like giving a kid a Happy Meal or segregating trash properly, they are actually exercising acts of leadership.
Valdes said that School of Management Lecturer Mark Ruiz said that he thought that "Dare it Forward" was a wild idea, but in the end, he liked the way it was executed, especially after seeing students do humbling tasks like greeting the maintenance people.
Filipino Assistant Instructor Ariel Diccion was one of the first teachers who participated in the "Dare it Forward" program.
So much potentialWith the response the program got from the Ateneo community, Castañar and Valdes hope that "Dare it Forward" would go beyond Ateneo and get recognized even in other schools.
“Our cause entails getting more individuals to see themselves as leaders, and practice leadership in their own communities,” Valdes said.